Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty
The Minneapolis uprising in the wake of George Floyd’s death is the result of one thing–let’s be clear. The man who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck until he uttered his last words, and the officers who stood in silence doing nothing, are walking the city as free people.
So, like history has presented itself before, the embers were flamed. Over the course of the last three nights, Minneapolis citizens took to the streets, where demonstrators set buildings ablaze.
And in those moments there will always be white people who are more interested in protecting capitalism and the continuation of state violence in these instances. Which brings us to a white, disabled woman in a wheelchair who was referred to as “Jennifer.”
“Jennifer” decided to participate in the uprising by posting outside of a local Target which was currently being looted, in an attempt to physical stop people from entering.
A video of her emerged of her late into the night crying and confused telling the camera, “I was peacefully protesting and trying to block the way so they couldn’t leave with a cart full of stuff. They attacked me from the front and back.”
“They punched me in my mouth, my head,” she continued. “I got punched in the head several times. I got grabbed from behind. People grabbed my wheelchair. They stole my keys, they stole everything they could off of me. I got maced in the face, I got covered with fire extinguisher stuff. I’ve already seen the EMT’s and they told me to go home.”
So the narrative ran that here was this benevolent woman who was attacked for no reason. But Twitter did it’s own investigation and found footage of “Jennifer” earlier in the day. Apparently Ms. “Jennifer” wasn’t a calm onlooker, but was wielding a knife at people, specifically Black people, as they left the Target.
You can hear people yelling,” She’s stabbing people!” and “She got a knife!” in all of the commotion.
In response a man can be seen spraying her with a fire extinguisher as people throw items at her.
In another angle, someone yells “Jennifer is that enough?” hence the reason why people on Twitter are calling her “Jennifer”. Now Black Twitter is having a field day with the information, gawking at the fact that she’s allegedly 30. They even claimed she faked her disability after a video emerged of a woman walking after being seated in a wheelchair.
While we’re not here for abelism, Twitter user Imani Barbarin, who is also disabled, perfectly explains that being disabled does not make you immune from racism.
“Racist disabled people exist,” she said. “Like, erasing somebodies disability does not make them less accountable, unless you think disabled who are racist can’t be held accountable or shouldn’t be.”
“She’s a racist disabled person. You all sit there and tell us that disabled people can be anything they set their mind to. Well, she’s a racist. She set her mind to that. She’s violent. She should be held accountable.”
And if the facts line up that that is indeed where she was coming from, there’s not much else to say but that.
The biggest takeaway is that it’s now Thursday, meaning we’ve gone four days without an arrest in the George Floyd case.
